Lisa's Laws: Losing a few pounds: the eternal New Year's resolution

It is, after all, just about the same resolution I have made since I was 14 years old and, I suspect, very similar to the resolution many, many women make each year. So here it is:

This year, for real, and I mean really real, I am going to lose weight.

Sure, over the decades there have been slight variations to the vow.

Sometimes I have specified actual poundage, which has varied from a minimum of 10 to a high of 30ish.

Sometimes instead of pounds I swap in a dress or jean or swimsuit size. There have even been years that I've targeted a specific garment, a dress that used to fit but no longer does, or one deliberately purchased a bit too snug and meant to provide inspiration.

Every few years I have actually achieved my goal of a perfect weight or size or measurement, most times I haven't, at least not during the year that I made the resolution.

I have though, met my goals if you disregard what we have come to consider the natural progression of time, you know, how, for example, how the year 1998 comes before 2003, which comes before 2008.

But if we fold time up in some sort of Dr. Who-ish kind of way, I have been somewhat successful. In fact, I've often been at my goal weight, just not in the same year that I set that goal. It's confusing, but it's true: Say, for example, I resolve to lose 15 pounds in 2013, which would put me at the same weight that I was in 2009. Of course, in 2009 I also resolved to lost a few pounds, trying, I suppose, to get back to my 2004 weight, or thereabouts. It could also very well mean that that right now, I have successfully reached my 2019 weight loss goal.

Yay me! (Honestly, if I had a Tardis this would all be make perfect sense.) What doesn't make sense is that I've seldom felt completely content with the body I was walking around in and I honestly can't think of a moment in my adulthood that I wasn't thinking about my weight, what I shouldn't have eaten, and how many miles I should walk or lunches I should skip to make up for the pizza/cookie/French fry I put in my mouth. It all started not long after Farrah Fawcett came out with that red bathing suit poster, and I don't think I've given myself a break since.

All that aside I will, undoubtedly, try to lose a few pounds. Or exercise more. Or eat healthier. All of which, of course, are just different ways of saying, "lose a few pounds." And if I fail to reach some magic number I resolve to be OK with that, and I'm going to try really hard not to let the scale decide how I feel about myself, whether I've been good or bad, or what kind of mood I'm going to be in for the rest of the day.